


372pages We Will Get Back

by HelluvaRig



Series: 372pages We Will Get Back [1]
Category: 372pages
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-09-24 11:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelluvaRig/pseuds/HelluvaRig
Summary: This is a fanfic for 372pages We'll Never Get Back podcast hosted by Mike Nelson and Conor Lastowka of rifftrax. This work is completely fictional + I am not affiliated with them or rifftrax in any way I am just a dumb fan. The podcast is about making fun of bad books (RPO, Armada, Tek War, Bob Honey, The Mister, etc.) and this work just makes fun of them all. I hope you all can get a good laugh out of it!One night while writing jokes for the podcast, Mike and Conor experience a thunder storm and have to travel cross country with Ernest Cline in a truck that can travel through time. Sound stupid? So is Eye of Argon.





	1. Stormin' Thru Time

Conor and Mike were bent over their desks, scribbling down notes for the morning’s recording of 372pages podcast. They happened to also be on a con-call, or “conference call”. 

“Well, Conor, I, seem to have tumbled to a new joke for tomorrow’s podcast.”

“That’s very good, Mike,” Connor replied to Mike gleefully. “I don’t quite have enough jokes for tomorrow’s podcast, and with yours I’m sure we’ll have just enough for the podcast tomorrow.”

Suddenly, a crack of thunder broke through the sky. 

“Did you hear that, Mike?” Conor asked.

“I sure did, Conor. In fact, I think we are having the same storm.” 

A few minutes after the thunder, Mike heard a truck outside his house. A bellowing voice shouted through the dark: “WHO’S THE SHERIFF OF THIS PODCAST?” Mike recognized the voice. “Conor, I don’t think you’re going to believe this, but Sean Penn is outside our house.”

“Mike, does he have a dildo?”

Mike flicked the window blinds closed, blinking twice to make sure he saw what he really saw. It was true: Sean Penn was standing in the yard in front of a truck. He hurried outside to meet this famous actor. 

“Hi Mr. Penn, I read your book.”

“You know, Mike, I own a heated pool. I don’t need to be here at your house with a truck.”

“What’s the truck for, Mr. Penn?”

“Well Mike, I’ll tell you over a cherry water. You see, Chad and Dale leant me this truck and said it’s of great importance that you get these keys.” And with that, Sean Penn disappeared in a puff of smoke and all that was left was a puddle of ass-piss on the pavement.

_ Easy come, easy go. _ Mike said, jangling the keys in his hand as he walked into the truck.

Starting it up, he noticed there weren’t any seatbelts. “Ah, must be an albanian thing.”   
  


The road to Conor’s house was long and uneventful, except for the brief stop off in Ohio to pick up Ernest Cline. His Delorian had broken down and needed to make a popular gaming competition in Canada where his girlfriend lives. 

Conor answered the door with a slice of banoffee pie in hand. Since the first attempt, he has filled his home and neighbors homes with banoffee pies in search of the perfect recipe.

“Mike, you put me on hold 13 days ago. Where’s Sean Penn?” Conor spat with pie dripping off his crusty lips.

“Sorry, Conor, but a lot of stuff happened. Mr. Penn is just in this jar of ass-piss now.”

“Hey are we close to Canada?” A familiar yet awful voice sounded from behind Mike.

“Oh yeah and also Ernest Cline is here to meet his girlfriend who lives in Canada.”

“This isn’t Canada, but we sure are near it maybe.” Conor assured them both.

Getting settled in the truck was easy business. Conor had thought to bring fuzzies and a few tarps and other knickknacks. Cline had brought a sack of masturbatory aids. There was only one road but Cline knew a shortcut thanks to his tour route of spoken word poetry. Mike drove, Conor was in the passenger seat, and Cline was in the back slopping around because the “seat” was actually just a stack of all their stuff. 

“This jar of ass-piss formerly known as Sean Penn said that Chad and Dale sent us this truck to get Cline to his girlfriend’s place in Canada?” Conor asked Mike for a third time. Sitting in a truck with Ernest Cline for an indeterminate amount of hours didn’t seem like the best way to spend a week.

“The jar didn’t say if it was for Cline specifically, but I imagine the rest of the plot will become clear to us as we press on.”

“Hey you guys read my book, right?” Cline asked, shouting over the rustle of the road. “Did you like it?”

Conor and Mike glanced at each other momentarily.

“We liked the pizza drone.” Mike chimed.

“The roving hordes of soccer moms was a nice touch.” Conor appeased.

Cline opened his fanny pack up. “You know fanny packs were a thing in the 80’s right?” He had said to Mike just days before. “It’s so classic. I can fit my Tab  _ and  _ my Nintendo Switch in it. Cool, huh?” Mike had eyed the duct tape in the glove compartment thoughtfully before deciding to let Conor handle Cline’s  _ Earnest _ ness.

“Well the pizza drone thing was for the  _ movie _ . I can’t believe what Spielberg did to my  _ novel _ . I mean, they didn’t even have the Uberbetty! That was the entire crux of my---I mean Wade’s emotional journey!”

Conor made a go for the duct tape as Cline digressed from his self-indulgent prattling and began on a new topic. “Oh, I see you’re wearing a  _ sportsball cap _ , Conor. Haha. I’m going to put that joke in Ready Player Two.”

And with that, he was bound and gagged.

“If only we had a torture pole.” Conor mused, glaring wistfully out the window while listening to the sultry sounds of a new DJ-turned-classical-pianist he had found on his Sonos.


	2. The Chapter Before The Trial of The Incineration of The 64-Squares Building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of 372Pages We Will Get Back continues as the boys head into a diner, meet a very hot waitress/mom, and FINALLY truck through a time!

The boys pulled into a truck stop just before heading into Canada. Cline was still bound with duct tape, and Mike led him towards the bathroom when they were spotted by an _agua bandito_. The _bandito_ was escorting several women with buckets and glared at the inhuman way Cline was taped up. Mike and Conor felt immediately guilty.

“Even though it’s the way we do things, Mike, we should respect the cultures of other people.”  
“I couldn’t agree more, Conor. Let’s untie him and let him go to the bathroom like a real human.”  
As soon as they unbound him, Cline exclaimed with unbridled glee: “HAPPY MEALS!” Conor and Mike looked at each other and then back at Ernest Cline for about a minute before Cline felt the need to explain.  
“I’m excited for Happy Meals, of course, because these truck stops carry last month’s happy meal toys. And I’m one Star Wars character away from having an entire Death Star set! A Death Star, in case you don’t know, is from the classic sci fi film Star Wars and housed many of the movie’s villains.”  
Mike cursed silently to himself for forgetting the duct tape in the car.

Back in the truck, Cline could be heard unwrapping his happy meal toy after throwing the accompanying meal out the window like a wasteful slob. After what seemed like two minutes, he got bored of the toy and began scrolling on his iPhone. Conor was taking his turn driving the truck, and Mike was in the passenger seat finishing up his California chicken sandwich.  
“Hey did you guys know they invented a contact lens camera? I bet that would have been useful for Sorrento to figure out he was actually in the Oasis faster huh?”  
“I thought you said you didn’t like the movie?” Mike asked.  
“Oh well I had to watch it in a few back to back movie sessions with my mom. It’s totally a cult classic.” Cline went back to a barely-working Black Tiger remake on his iPhone while Mike and Conor had a conversation.  
“Mike, you said this was a gift from Chad and Dale?” Conor asked, eyeing the qualcomm.  
“I sure did, Conor. In fact, Chad and Dale said we had some very important things to do with this truck.”  
“Well if this truck is meant to truck through time, don’t you think we should figure out our ways about it?”  
“I agree with you completely, Conor. Say, let’s stop at this truck stop diner up the road, here.”  
“10-4 good buddy.” Conor said grinning ear to ear.

As Conor and Mike (and Cline) walked into the diner they found themselves in the midst of real cowboys. Everyone was wearing cowboy hats. The waitress, who was hot (and also a mom) showed them to their booth. The fabric on the booth seemed to remind Ernest Cline of the 80’s diner from Back to the Future.  
Conor immediately flipped to the back page while Mike ordered a big egg and ham breakfast for everyone. Cline mirrored what Conor did in an effort to fit in. Suddenly, fireworks went off in Conor’s mind. “Mike, look at the back page of the menu! It says here that at this truck stop in 1972, Ernest Cline was conceived.”  
“In the truck stop? Like in that booth over there?”  
“Well partner I sure hope it wasn’t in this one.” Conor quipped.  
They ate their breakfast while Cline scrawled lewd 80’s slash fiction on the paper tablecloth with crayons. Mike got up to use the bathroom while Conor told the waitress to give the check to Cline before checking the weather channel.  
When Mike sat back down, Conor relayed the information he had gathered. “After a 20 minute commercial for baby diapers -- for some reason -- I found out that there’s going to be a huge snowstorm just 10 miles up the road.”  
“Aw shucks fellers, there aint gonna be a snowstorm for a few months at least!” The waitress interjected. “Hell, my boyfriend is comin’ up this way too and he knows everything there’s ‘ta know about snowstorms in these here parts.”  
It took Mike and Conor a hot minute to parse out what she had just said. Meanwhile, Cline had not stopped staring at her since she had walked over. She had a rounded face with a pointy chin. She had a shock of pink hair amidst a short bob cut. She was portly but not so in an unattractive way, and she wore a tank top and camo pants. In a word: hot.  
“I bet your boyfriend doesn’t have the current high score on Joust.” Cline bragged, grinning.  
The waitress blushed, her incandescent orbs sparkling. “Why no, Mister, he’s just a lowly scrub.”  
Cline smirked, his groin stirring. “Well, what’s your name?”  
“Bleriana.” The waitress blushed even redder.  
“Well, Bleriana, it seems to me as you need a new boyfriend: stat.”  
Bleriana gasped. “That’s from my favorite classic medical show, ER!”  
Cline rolled his eyes playfully. “You know George Clooney went on to star as Batman in the 1997 classic film Batman & Robin, right?”  
Conor stood up, shaking his head and pointing at Ernest Cline. “Settle the hell down!” He bellowed. Mike was watching in abject horror as the scene unfolded.  
Cline blinked up at Conor seemingly innocent and pulled out his Family Ties bifold wallet. His credit card glistened with the picture of the Star Wars logo superimposed over his full name: Ernest Christy Cline.

Back in the truck, Cline was memorizing each digit of Bleriana’s phone number. He had found out on their walk out to the truck that she was a former sex trafficking victim who was just afraid of poop buckets, vaccuums, and the dark -- no other ill things had befallen her during her time as a former sex trafficking victim at all. He was relieved. He always imagined himself with someone as pure and wholesome as Leia Skywalker -- without the whole kissing her own brother thing, of course. Yep, he was truly in love. He watched as her sparkling orbs wettened with tears as they rode off. “Do not worry, sweet Bleriana, I shall return for you!”  
“Hey Cline, what were you doing with Bleriana in the back of the truck for like an hour before we took off?” Mike asked shakily.  
“Wouldn’t YOU like to know, wink wink!” Ernest Cline said, even going so far as to say ‘wink wink’. He was grinning a cheshire cat grin.  
Mike, as he was learning to, once again chose to ignore Cline. He didn’t want to know what had truly transpired in the back of a borrowed truck while a jar of ass piss watched on.  
“Head north up this road here.” said Conor. “We’ll be in that obviously-a-time-travel-portal snowstorm in no time!”  
Mike pulled out of the diner truck stop and onto the road. Suddenly, there was snow dripping from the sky like tiny dust motes in a snow globe. The clock on the truck’s dash was circling (Cline had insisted upon installing an analog clock before he would even think about joining the trip). After a few moments, they stood in front of a pile of rubbish that used to be a building. The truck had disappeared as well.  
“Mike, where do you think we are?” Conor asked.  
“Or WHEN do you think we are?” Cline said, grinning to himself.  
“Excuse me, sirs. My name is Agent “Davy” Bond, and I have memorized your wanted pictures. You’re all under arrest for the destruction and explosion of the 64-Squares Building.”  
Mike and Conor could hardly believe what they were hearing. They didn’t just travel to a new time, they traveled to a new place entirely. They gave each other a knowing look. They knew they could get out of this if they used some quick wits.  
“We aren’t cat burglar terrorists, though.” Conor explained to Agent “Davy” Bond.  
“I’ll have you know, I never forget a face. As I always say, ‘You never know when you might come face-to-face with a wanted criminal, and it would be terrible to just let them walk away because you did not recognize their face.’”  
“That is a very long quote, but it is true.” Mike said.  
“Come with me, we have to meet up with Quick Swift, Sharp Hatchet, and of course Judge Moses Gavel. Between the four of us and the Certified Public Accountants that help make up the prosecution’s witnesses to the crime, we should be able to get to the bottom of this.”


	3. Chapter 3 and also Chapter 3 1/2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well well well it looks as though a PLOT has emerged! Mike and the Boys have a court date with Judge Moses Gavel and pick up yet another traveler!?!

They all sat around a large metal table in Judge Moses Gavel’s office. They had to find out who set the explosives in the 64-Squares building. Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant was there to serve as a lay witness. The Judge banged the Moses Gavel and began the session to determine who set the explosives in the 64-Squares Building, thereby reducing the building to rubbish and incinerating the 64-Squares financial statements.  
The room was silent save for Ernest Cline rustling with a bag of potato chips. Judge Moses Gavel waited patiently for Cline to finish his chips (without sharing) before letting the prosecutor, Sharp Hatchet, begin.  
Sharp Hatchet began by asking questions of the lay witness: Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant, the insurance investigator Quick Swift, and Mike and Conor. He asked about the financial statements that were burned in the explosion. What could be gained by burning the financial statements of the 64-Squares building? Who would want to burn the 64-Squares building to rubbish? These are the questions Sharp Hatchet asked the lay witness Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant, the insurance investigator Quick Swift, and because they were found near the scene of the horrific crime: Mike and Conor.  
Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant explained how he and his team comprised of Dena Hope, Drew Samson, Veronica Jackson, and himself - Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant were able to figure out who the cat burglar terrorist was by using amazing new and future technology as well as their own intelligence.  
“We now know that the “cat burglar terrorist” is Clef Treble.” Mike started when it was his turn. “All the evidence proves it.”  
Quick Swift hastily accepted this response and backed it up, relaying the evidence back to Sharp Hatchet. As he handed the evidence to prosecutor Sharp Hatchet, his wallet fell out of his pocket - showing off pictures of his wife and children.  
“That was very fast, Mr. Swift.” Sharp Hatchet said.  
“That is because my name is Quick Swift, and I do everything quickly.”  
Some time later, Judge Moses Gavel was able to respond to the charges and put Clef Treble away for ever. He also saw to it that Jack Starr, CEO of 64-Squares, was fired because he was responsible for the 64-Squares financial statements. He was now the former CEO of 64-Squares.

“That was some scrape we just got in, partner!” Conor said to Mike while they walked out of the courthouse.  
“It sure was, Conor.” Mike responded. “We could have almost been caught red handed and thrown into prison -- or worse.”  
“So, where to next?” Ernest Cline grinned to himself, spinning a classic fidget spinner in his hand that he stole from a twelve year old. “Or, when to next? Right guys?”  
Both Mike and Conor stopped dead in their tracks and turned around to face him. “You made that joke when we got here, Cline.” Mike said.  
They all heard footsteps running from the courthouse. It was Jack Starr. He was running towards them, beckoning them by waving his cowboy hat in the air. His sheriff badge that said “Sheriff” on it glistened in the afternoon light.  
“Fellas!” He puffed. “Fellas, wait!”  
“We’re not moving!” Conor shouted at him as they stood and watched Sheriff Jack Starr sidle up to them.  
“Listen, fellas, I just got fired from being the sheriff of the 64-Squares building.” Jack Starr wrung his hat in his hands. “And I was just wondering if..if I could join ya’ll wherever you were headed.”  
Mike and Conor looked at each other for a moment. They knew that Jack Starr had to join Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant and his team of Forensic Certified Public Accountant Team Members which included Dena Hope, Drew Samson, Veronica Jackson, and Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant. The trouble was, they didn’t know how to go about doing that - especially now that he was so intent on joining them. He even pulled out a Cow Rig t-shirt to show his devotion.  
“How did you get that so fast?” Conor asked.  
“And how the heck do you know who were are?” Mike added.  
Jack Starr, former sheriff of 64-squares, winked at them and grinned before he responded, “We all know who you are. You’re here to set things right!”  
“Oh man, sick Quantum Leap reference, dude!” Cline finally chimed in. He had broken his fidget spinner and was eavesdropping on them now. “So you mean we’re all on a hero’s journey to fix the stories we’re traveling through?”  
Jack Starr grinned and patted both Mike and Conor’s shoulders as they stood there staring blankly into space, shocked and horrified at the situation they’d gotten themselves into by listening to a jar of ass piss.

* * * *  
Chapter 3 1/2

“You’ll never get away with this!” Bleriana shouted over her bucket. She grasped it as if the bucket was the lost love of her life. _Zot. No. That is my Mister.. My Cline_ \-- she thought to herself wistfully. She undulated underneath her orchid twines, glaring with blue ovals up at the Prince of the castle.  
She was trapped in a rotting stygian dungeon. Grotesque protuberances emanated from the grimy stone walls. Vulgar torches illuminated the piercing rat circles that glowed in the dark corners of the room. The dungeon smelled of fet-id flesh and decaying corpses of human skins.  
“Your Mag-jesty.” A purple-robed figure lurched behind the fat Prince?  
“What is it, Flirfnir?” the Prince’s fat wobbled.  
“The two we were after have absconded with the metal carriage, along with the one she calls Cline.” Fiflnier nervously fondled his emblazoned lobes.  
“Slut!” The prince eyed the robed figure angrily with menacing orbs. “Tie the wench up to mellow her from her lust-ful grimes.”  
The robed figure did as ordered, and tied Bleriana down to the marble table in the middle of the room. Bleriana watched his necklace - lashed with skulls with crimson fet-ish eyeballs - sway as he tightened the leather-embedded sashes around her thin opaque legs. She squirmed until she could see her bucket and sighed with relief. _They’ll leave me alone until they find my Mister, I know it, bucket. _


	4. Chapter 4: The Life and Times of Colonel Reginald Brisbee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 brings the boys to space. What awaits them there? A talking...cat!?! perchance? No. Something even dumber. Professor Xavier X-man and his ragtag group of idiot men. And son. Of course. It's ARMADA TIME!!!!

“Uh, guys? The back’s a little cramped here.” Ernest Cline complained from the back seat of the truck. Currently, Sheriff Jack Starr, ex-CEO of the 64-Squares building was taking up more than his share of the back seat with his piles of sheriff star badges.  
“Each one was hand-made by me, you see.” Jack Starr showed off one of his several dozen sheriff badges. This one was metallic-gold painted wood. The little nobs at the end of the star points had rhinestones on them. “This here was the first one I ever made. I was six.”  
Cline wrenched himself forward, sticking his head in between Conor and Mike. “Please, anything. I need some more space. My comic books are getting wrinkled. Mike fluffed his newspaper and mumbled, “heaven knows why you’d bring comic books in a bumpy, grimy, time traveling truck…” and with that Cline plopped back into his seat with a huge “harumph!”  
Conor grinned at the situation for a moment before realizing where they were headed next: the Moon.  
Mike finally put down his newspaper and looked around. The snow was covering the entire truck in a blizzardy mess. The only thing they could see was a building sitting on the moon’s surface. “Don’t panic, Conor. We could simply be in Tek War.”  
Conor gave a nervous glance at the jar of ass piss, which was still sloshing around on the truck’s dashboard, then back at Cline through the rear-view mirror. He cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, Ernest?”  
Ernest nearly fell over he was in such shock over Conor using his first name in such a tone. “Um… yeah?”  
“If we’re on Moon Base Alpha or whatever it’s called, you’re going to help us get out of there, right?”  
Ernest Cline shrugged one shoulder. “I guess, if I remember any of it.”  
Mike and Conor gave each other another incredulous look.  
“WOAH THERE, PARTNER!” Boomed Jack Starr. “I think we’re gonna crash!”  
Conor whipped his head back towards the front window of the truck and sure enough -- they were about to crash head-first into a moon crater. Shielding their eyes with their arms, all four boys prepared to face the inevitable. For Conor and Mike that was dying in a time traveling truck with Ernest Cline, Jack Starr, and a jar of ass-piss formerly known as Sean Penn.  
However, when they should have crashed, they instead lurched forward slightly before being pulled backwards -- back into space. Mike checked the side-mirror. “I think we’re being sucked into a dodecahedron, Conor.”  
“I agree, partner.” Conor said. “We’re surely in for some trouble if we get on the wrong side of the Europans.”  
“Europeans?” Cline asked, quizzically.  
Mike let out a deep, Norman-esque sigh. “You wrote it! You’re the one who wrote down in your book about how this alien species from the moon Europa, called the Europans, were coming to attack Earth. How could you forget something like that?!”  
Cline made a thoughtful expression. “Oh yeah!”  
The truck had almost made it via the tractor beam back into the dodecahedron when suddenly a few blasts seemed to come out of nowhere, and they were attacking the dodecahedron.  
“Who in their right mind--” Conor began, before realizing what book they were in, then finished with a long, drawn out sigh.  
Xavier Lightwood and his son, Wade Lightman were currently attacking the seven-sided ship known as a dodecahedron. Of course, they weren’t really in those ships. The truth of it was that they were piloting those drone-ships from inside Moon Base Alpha which was located somewhere on the surface of Earth’s Moon.  
“I guess you could call them Lunarians.” Cline grinned under his breath.  
“Quit tossing out cut lines from Armada, Cline.” Conor said while grasping onto the ass-piss jar for support.  
“L-l-listen, fellas,” muttered a bug-eyed Jack Starr, former CEO of 64-Squares building, “This has all been a hoot, really it was. B-but I think I best be going back to my own time now. You know, I’m used to being on solid Texan soil. None of this… moon business.”  
During Jack Starr’s reaction to all this, a subtle beeping could be heard in the truck. Conor looked around until he noticed that what was beeping was the Qualcomm. He lifted it and pressed a button that seemed to connect them to the moon base.  
“Uh, hello?” asked Conor.  
“Don’t worry guys, we got this!” an older man sounded off through the Q-Comm.  
“Haha -- woo! Yea, dad!” a younger voice shouted through shortly after, breaking up it was so loud.  
The tractor beam faltered slightly before eventually cutting out entirely. “They must have hit the tractor beam lasers.” Cline nodded sagely, even as they fell to their probable doom.

  
But they didn’t fall to their doom. Instead, Xavier and Zach had their own mini tractor beams and used them to help the truck land safely at Moon Base Alpha.

  
Once inside the moon base, they went through a few nondescript tunnels and doors for five minutes. Finally they reached the end which opened up into a large room. In the center were the drone bays and other tools for piloting the drone-ships.  
“Here we are, boys!” Xavier Lightman’s arms spread wide as he welcomed Conor, Mike, Jack Starr, and Ernest Cline. Cline’s eyes lit up, Jack Starr puked in his bag of sheriff badges, and Conor and Mike sighed once more.  
Around the outside of the room was a smattering of nerd bachelor horrors: large tables and chairs were set up along the edges of the room, each having their own game set up on them. One had Dungeons and Dragons, another Settlers of Catan, and so on. On the far end of the room was a 3-piece band set up which was good enough if you didn’t care about sounding good at all (the Marshall amps saw to that).  
A grumpy old man voice cleared it’s throat. “Ahem.” The old man voice did indeed belong to an older gentleman.  
“Oh, that’s right. Let me introduce you to the gang, er what’s left of them anyways.” He pointed at the two men standing over by the Dungeons and Dragons table, obviously interrupted out of something scandalous. “The old man there, heh, is named Major Graham Fogg. He’s my number two.” The fat man standing next to him giggled at “number two”.  
“Ah, yes and the man standing next to him,” Xavier pointed at the portly man next to Fogg whose face was caked with Cheetos dust, “is Milo Dobson.”  
Mike and Conor both waved at the other boys. They’d already read this book before, so of course they would recognize the orange dust covered Milo and the “why is he a lower rank than Xavier Lightbutt” Major Fogg. The thing that interested them was that the other pilots weren’t there. As far as the rest of the crew was concerned, it had only ever been these four dudebros in space together. No one seemed to be missing.  
Cline went over to the Dungeons and Dragons table. “Aw man, can me and Jack play a game?” to which Milo turned and began ‘splaining the delicate intricacies of setting up a class and race for the game. Jack Starr nervously shuffled over, asking if he could be a Sheriff class. To his enjoyment, he actually could.  
With two of the idiots on board, Mike and Conor had to figure out what was going wrong in Armada to the extent that the Truck would send them here, because apparently that was the plot now. Xavier ran over to the guitar and started “tuning” it which was really just him hitting one note at a time and pretending it was out of tune so he’d look cool. His son, Zach clapped in rapturous glee at how cool his dad seemed. Xavier just grinned.  
At that moment, Milo seemingly teleported over to Mike and Conor and offered them a joint. “Here, I call it Yoda’s Butthole, or something. It’s amazing. The Government(™) made it for us.”  
Mike and Conor rolled their eyes and passed on the dubious looking drugs and looked out the nearby window.  
“Uh, Professor Xavier Lightman? Is that one of our guys?” Mike asked without looking away.  
Xavier looked up from ruining yet another classic guitar and dropped his jaw. “Damn it, GLAIVES!”  
Conor was unable to concentrate for the next few minutes as he was running through several Simpsons references in his head. Mike was listening, though. “--- Grab a bay, guys. We need all hands on deck!” Xavier commanded. And now it was up to Mike, Conor, Jack Starr, and Ernest Cline to save the galaxy ---- AGAIN.


	5. Chapter 5: Don't Worry, There's a Chapter 6!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ARMADA TIME PART 2

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” Ernest Cline spoke to the button he pressed to open the pod bay doors. He exchanged a wide grin which functioned like a visual high-five with Xavier and Zach Lightmans.   
Everyone had gathered in their separate drone pods. Mike and Conor were visibly nervous but more upset that the Truck was parked too far away to just leave these losers behind.  
Suddenly, a loud beeping sound could be heard in the room. Xavier looked at his Q-Comm and frowned. Zach became immediately concerned that his father wasn’t grinning like an idiot. “What is it, pops?”  
“Son, it looks as though we’ll have to use the real ships for this. Ever wanted to pilot a Power-Leaping robot for real?  
“Boy howdy I sure have, dad!” Zach exclaimed with rapturous glee.  
“What the hell are you guys talking about, no one here knows how to pilot actual ships!” Conor yelled.  
It was Major Graham Fogg’s turn to grin. “Do not worry, my boy. We shan’t have another mishap as we did the last time the Glaives attacked.”  
“Yeah, the government made it so the drones and the actual ships operate in the same exact way.” Milo said through another mouthful of Cheetos.  
“That stil---” Mike began before he was forcibly pulled out of the pod by Conor who whispered to him “Let’s just get this over with.”   
The ships were located a small shuttle ride away. Unfortunately, the Glaives were already striking the base and they had to walk through a series of nondescript tunnels and doorways and open rooms that smelled worse than the stygian haunts of death. One room contained piles of badges and trophies the government had given them in thanks for their service. There was also a room that housed an entire library’s worth of bibles and shakespeare collections, but they were hurried out of that room as well as the one containing a cheese puff factory. Mike and Conor couldn’t picture Milo cheese-thumbing his way through Romeo and Juliet. The last room was something out of a j-pop video. Mike grabbed a thing of bright-purple hair dye on his way out “just ‘cause”.  
They finally made it to the hangar with all the ships, and each person - Milo, Fogg, Xavier, Zach, Jack Starr, Mike, and Conor all got in their own ship. Conor wanted to ride in the back of Mike’s like R2D2 but Xavier had already wrecked that ship the first week they got there nearly 20 years ago. In the end, they settled for matching tie-fighters from the classic sci-fi movie Star Wars. Of course, they were painted with different colors so as to avoid accidental nerd-rage caused by them piloting the “bad guy” ships.   
Xavier’s expression changed from broiling anger (because clearly those are the ships he and Zach wanted to fly today) to grinning widely in what seemed to me milliseconds.  
“No no, boys. That’s not your ship.” Xavier thrust his thumb to the back of the hangar where a very large tarp lay over an even larger vehicle. “That’s your ride.”  
No sooner had they removed the tarp did Conor and Mike find a gigantic spaceship resembling their mascot: the cow rig. They stared at it for a moment -- an action Zach Lightman took as appreciation. “We outfitted her with double-moo blasters and power jumping action. Cool huh?”  
Mike glared at Conor, for he had never truly forgiven him for going to those body inflation websites and bringing ‘that they exist’ to his attention. Conor blushed. It’s what he had always wanted but was too afraid to ask. Immediately, he power leaped into the captain’s seat. The cow rig, dubbed HOOMOOS, was already well stocked with a variety of snacks that both Mike and Conor loved.   
Conor looked out and around at everyone’s ships. Xavier and Zach had the tie fighters, Ernest Cline had an x-wing, Jack Starr had the ship from Star Games, Major Graham Fogg was in the ship from Star Raiders, and Milo was squeezed into something out of Battlestar Galactica.  
Clearly, he and Mike had the best one.  
Leaving the hangar, they could just see the GlaiVES fast approaching. It was now or never. But definitely now, because the GlaIVES started shooting.  
“Okay guys, cool saying time as we shoot them back!” Zach reminded everyone.  
The comms were silent for a few minutes, before Jack Starr’s confident, booming voice could be heard through all the Earth Defense Ships: “WHO’S THE SHERIFF OF MOON BASE ALPHA??”  
Xavier Lightman - not to be outdone - called back, “YOU’RE WELCOME!”  
Zach Lightman screeched: “HERE’S A STORY, ABOUT SOME STARSHIPS! WHO’RE COMING TO BLOW UP THE GLAIVES!”  
Ernest Cline cleared his throat and yelled: “ALL THE PORN I’VE COME ACROSS WAS TARGETED AT BEER-SWILLING SPORTS BAR DWELLING ALPHA-MALES”  
Major Graham Fogg was immediately blown up by a Glaive fighter.  
Milo screamed: “EYE OF THE TIGER!” in a thick Philadelphia accent.  
Mike was pretty concerned with the fact that Major Graham Fogg just died, so he wasn’t able to stop Conor from yelling: “FOR THE CORGS!”  
As Major Graham Fogg’s ship and body were blown to rubbish in the midst of the battle, Mike couldn’t help but wonder how Conor could actually fly the ship. So he asked him: “Conor, how are you flying the ship right now? You have, very little spaceship flying experience. Why haven’t we died yet?”  
“Well, Mike, I’ll tell you.” Conor waved his hand around at the controls. “You see, they took the time to model the HOOMOOS ship controls as close as they could to just pouring and drinking different locally sourced, hand crafted beers.”  
Mike went to grab a beer for himself, and the HOOMOOS jolted to the left.  
“See? Here, these are the snack beers they left for us.” Conor fixed the ship’s position and handed Mike a beer.  
“Mmm. Snack beers.” Mike and Conor laughed for what seemed like the first time this whole adventure.  
Zach and Xavier were doing barrel rolls while needling through hordes of Glaive fighters. Conor helped out the best he could, but he was getting drunker by the minute. Occasionally he shot in the direction of the Glaives, and occasionally he just barely missed being blown up. All was going well, until there was a faint cloud of Cheetos dust in the air.

“Captain, I’m picking up a larger vessel approaching.” Milo said over the comms.  
Xavier and Zach blew up the last few Glaives as the fresh, sporty Dodecahedron showed up, looming over all of them. “Don’t worry son, I got this.” Xavier said, rushing off in his tie fighter to face off with the planet-sized ship by himself.  
It began shooting lasers out of itself immediately. Zach screamed, “NO, DAD!” and Milo begged them to calm down and regroup.   
“We can’t win with just the five of us like this. We need something bigger, or a smarter plan.” Milo said the first intelligent thing of his life. He shook his head. Of course, the Yoda’s Perfect Special weed the government had synthesized for them specifically was finally wearing off.   
Xavier and Zach both zipped by him, hitting the Dodecahedron with all they had. Milo yelled out after them over the comms: “Guys, this is how we lost the others. You have to slow down!” but the Lightmans weren’t listening.  
Mike picked up on that last part. “Uh, what exactly did you say, Milo?”  
Milo switched to a private comm, which apparently you could do with the Q-Comms. He let out a heavy sigh. “So, originally there were three more of us. There was Whoadie, Pam, and the guy who was from Japan who I made out with a lot. Each time there’s an attack on the moon base, at least one of us dies.”  
“So there’ve been three other attacks?” Mike asked.  
“Yes. I overheard Zach and Xavier talking about it once. They seem to think they’re the main characters of something and therefore cannot die. Unfortunately, that makes it easier for us to die, because otherwise it wouldn’t be a good read.”  
Mike pondered for a bit at that. But he didn’t have long, because just as Conor swooped out of the way of a Dodecahedron laser blast, Jack Starr swerved in the way and got blown up.  
“Shit.” Conor said, a little slurred.   
Mike watched the many sheriff star badges twinkle in the fire-y explosion.  
The Dodecahedron seemed unstoppable. Ernest Cline knew this. He chomped on one more beef jerky / cheddar cheese combo stick and crashed himself into the Dodecahedron -- a stupid move by anyone’s measure.  
“Hey, kid.” Xavier said in a strange tone.  
“Yeah dad?” Zach asked over an ACDC song blaring amongst static over the comms.  
“Make sure they cure Cancer and All Other Diseases after I do this, ok?”  
“Dad, WAIT!” Zach shouted as he power leaped in his ship out to save his dad. He knocked the beam holding the laser off to the side slightly, just enough for it to save the most important two guys in the galaxy.  
Unfortunately, the laser the Dodecahedron fired next was off-kilter because of Zach’s meddling, and fired straight at the HOOMOOS. Mike clutched the jar of ass-piss, and Conor had time to sip one last sip of beer before the HOOMOOS exploded in milky ecstasy.


	6. Chapter 5.5: THE UP PLACE and Chapter 6: I TOLD YOU THERE'D BE A CHAPTER 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was mad at Conor so I wrote chapter 5.5 just to tease him!
> 
> And Now that they're dead what more trouble can they get into? Chapter 7 coming next week!

Chapter 5 ½: The Up Place

The smell of crackerjacks, dog hair, and craft beer filled the air. Conor opened his eyes and took in the rainbow-colored sky and fluffy clouds at his feet. Hearing some barking, he turned. There was a swarm of welsh corgis running at him. He stood his ground, hoping to be enveloped by their sweet embrace and kisses. But as they approached him and he reached out to pet one, his hand went right through it._ Cursed to never again pet a corg?! Say it ain’t so! _Conor thought to himself disdainfully. He watched the corgis run through him as if he was a ghost for what seemed like minutes.

After the corgi horde passed, he took in the rest of the sights. There was a small bar at the end of a particularly pathway-like cloud. He walked over to it and sat down.

“What’ll it be?” a computer-terminal face asked him from behind the bar. Clearly, he’d have to order by talking to this hunk of machine. 

Conor cleared his throat. ‘Uh, I’ll have a < CRAFT BEER >, please, if you have it.”

“Why, we’re the Up place’s highest rated beer bar on yelp!” The robot-face chimed as robotic arms that dangled from the ceiling plucked out the beer just for him. “We have every kind of < CRAFT BEER > you’d ever desire.” 

“Wow, even this place is on yelp? I’ve never heard of it before.” Conor took a sip of beer and nodded at the bottle, because it’s a known fact that after you take the first sip of beer you have to nod at it as if to say, ‘damn it, boy, that’ll do’. 

The robot face turned off to give Conor his space to nod. Conor thought to himself how polite that was. He hated making chit chat with robot-faces after they’d served their purpose.

After his last sip of beer he smelled something interesting. It was crackerjacks, the same smell from before, only it was stronger now. He got up without paying or tipping and walked down the cloud-road towards where the smell got smellier. He walked past many shops. They were mostly bookstores and they sold only four different books: Citation Needed 1 & 2, Gone Whalin’, and Pole Vault Championship of the Entire Universe. There were also some video game shops with a sign posted “NO GIRLS ALLOWED”. He tore those signs down in frustration as the peanuts and crackerjack smell exploded in his nose like atomic bombs going off one after the other. A Corgi came up and walked next to him. A tear rolled down Conor’s cheek as he remembered he couldn’t pet them for some reason up here.

“You can pet me.” The corgi said in a gruff voice.

“You can talk!?!” Conor exclaimed.

“You drank our special Up Place < CRAFT BEER >. It has magic powers that lets you pet lots of dogs and talk to animals.”

“That’s really cool.” Conor said, picked up the corgi, and kept walking.

At the end of the cloud-road there was a large grass field. It was in the shape of a diamond but not the jewelry kind. No, it was a _basesball diamond! _Hundreds of cheering corgis were in the stands and there was a seat right at the best spot marked “For Conor, Love: Every Corgi Ever.” He took his seat as king of the corgs and as they donned his special crown the game started. The players weren’t normal baseball players though. You guessed it: they were corgis dressed as baseball players. And they played a mean game, too! Conor laughed and clapped and cheered and sipped on more < CRAFT BEER > as the hours and days passed, never seeming to get tired. 

“...nor?” Conor looked around. The rainbow sky seemed to flicker slightly as he tried to listen harder.

“Conor?” It was Mike’s voice, but it sounded far away.

“Conor!” Now Mike’s face was in front of his, but just his face. It was really creepy. But it startled him enough that he realized what was going on, finally. He grabbed the Tek Chip that was nestled on his temple and ripped it out.

Chapter 6: I told you there’d be a chapter 6

“Damn it, Mike, I was just about to get to the good part.” Conor said, squirming slightly. He was strapped down to a long, metal table. He couldn’t move anything except his eyes and his head. He looked over at Mike who was also strapped down to his own table.

“The corgi tek dream again?” Mike sighed. 

A loud banging could be heard from above them behind a glass window. Mike and Conor continued on, laughing and chatting.

A microphone buzzed from the other side of the window.

“Let’s try this again.” A man’s voice sighed. “Where is Beth Kittridge?”

Mike thoughtfully said “She’s in an abandoned facility sleeping on a metal table.”

“In Mexico” Conor added.

“Yeah, that’s right. Mexico.”

After a moment, something that sounded like a chair being thrown across the room came through the wall. Mike and Conor burst out laughing. This was the third day of interrogation. Each day, Jake Cardigan put a tek chip on their heads. And each day, they gave him nothing useful. Conor kept dreaming about corgis playing baseball, and Mike was surrounded by some quippy robots. Mike figured the tek didn’t work the same on them because they weren’t “from” this book.

~ * ~ * 3 Days Earlier * ~ * ~

They had arrived shortly after clearing their names in 64-Squares. Mike and Conor realized immediately by all the plas-walls and plas-chairs that they were now in Tek War. Ernest Cline was busy at the robot brothel, of course. He had wandered off, muttering something about C3PO. Conor and Mike decided that was for the best, and after a time discussing it settled on trying to find Sonny Hokori which was probably the fastest way out of there. However, what they had forgotten was that Jake Cardigan was also hot on Sonny’s trail, if only a few poignant meetings behind. In fact, Jake Cardigan happened to be across the street when he noticed the land-truck pull up seemingly out of nowhere. It was unusual because everyone knew that land trucks haven’t been around for years, and most companies used air-trucks or sky-trains now to move goods and services.

_No, _Jake thought to himself, _something’s up!_ And with that he called his contact with the plas-moon police, Winger.

“Winger, I’ve got something for you.”

“What is it this time, Cardigan?” Asked the robot policeman disdainfully. “Beth stuck in a well? Beth captured by your ex girlfriend, a war monger in Mexico?”

“No, Winger, forget about last Tuesday. Today is Friday, and I am going to go to Mexico but not to see WarBride, who is named as such because she is married to war, but I am going to an abandoned facility.”

“I’ll meet you down there, I just have to finish printing out the paperwork that will give me access.” Winger said, hanging up the plasphone.

“But wait, Winger. There’s more.”

“I already have ten gallons of oxyclean, Jake, I don’t want any part of your plasmerchandise scams anymore either.”

“No no, this is for real. I just saw a land truck stop and three guys came out but only one went into the robot brothel.”

“That _is _strange.” Winger said thoughtfully.

“Yes, and I need you to print up some warrants so I can interrogate them. I have a gut feeling these guys have something to do with kidnapping Beth Kittridge. Why would they go to a robot brothel when they have the super hot Beth at home to bother?”

“Sound reasoning!” Winger said, surprised.

Jake decided to ignore that, and went on to capture Mike and Conor.

So that’s how they got to Jake’s secret facility just three stories above where Beth was being held by Sonny Hokori, but no one knew that yet. Jake had captured them, Winger made it legal, and then they all had to drag Ernest Cline out of C3PO’s embrace.

Originally, Jake had set them all up with tek, and punched a numerical program in to the corresponding devices to get the truth out of them. He was at his last straw. Something about ‘not being from this universe’ and how ‘plas is a really stupid name for literally everything’ really got under his skin. Tek was his last resort.

On the plas-screen he could see what they were all dreaming. The first one was the most vivid, and Jake could understand very little. Why was there a sheriff in space? Why wasn’t he a moon-sheriff? Why did Mike steal that purple hair dye? And _why _did they fly around in a giant inflatable cow that Jake (totally) didn't have stuffed in his plas-bedroom closet!?!

He inquired as to where exactly “moon base alpha” was, since the only building on Earth’s moon were prisons. When the robot-humper couldn’t deliver a convincing enough response, Jake put him in a separate room. Now it was just the two he really had his eye on.

With Ernest Cline away from them (still puzzling out how “the other side of the moon” wasn’t a good enough answer for Jake), Mike and Conor began to devise a plan. They would devote absolute zero energy into the interrogation until Jake let him go. He was a man of action, surely he’d get bored soon.

“Tell me where Beth is!” Jake snapped into the microphone.

“She’s like three floor below us.” Conor said, remembering the vague description from the book.

“Impossible! Why would my secret Mexico base be the same as the base Sonny Hokori is holding Beth in?” Jake asked.

“Because this book is _incredibly _stupid.” Conor suggested.

“Just go downstairs like three floors she’s probably booting up now as we speak.” Mike explained.

There was silence for a time while Jack Cardigan went down the plas-elevator and got Beth. When he returned he apologetically un-snapped everyone from their coils. “Uh, sorry about that fellas.”

“Completely justified under the circumstances.” Mike accepted.

“Yeah, sort of.” Conor added. And with that they grabbed Ernest Cline who was trying to drink the jar of ass-piss and began to leave.

“Wait!” Winger said from the plas-way. 

“What is it?” Conor asked.

“Wait for this print out, and I can give you not only a pardon, but a solution for turning that jar back into whoever it was previously.”

“But think of the lipstick-smudged women we’d miss out on!” Conor whined. 

“Now now, Conor, we still have a few books to get through. Let’s take him up on his offer.” Mike said. Conor sighed.

Winger started unbuttoning his jacket and shirt.

“Woah woah woah! We don’t need any of that!” Conor waved his hands in front of his face.

“Yeah, we’re married men!” Mike assured the robot.

Winger sighed. Humans were a plague on mankind. “It’s how I print out my materials.” he tried to explain.

Mike and Conor knew this from the book, but still felt uncomfortable. But the only place they could divert their eyes was Ernest Cline with suspiciously wet lips, so they opted for the robot ejaculation.

Several disturbing minutes later, papers were printed and a formula obtained. They just needed to find a rich scientist located somewhere in England to synthesize the materials.

“Don’t worry.” Conor said graciously. “We have just the book in mind.”

Winger and Jack waived their plas-hands as they saw Mike, Conor, and Ernest off. It wouldn’t be the last they saw of them. They were inter-dimensional criminals, after all.


	7. Prologue: (but not really)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright so The Mister was a thing that happened. 
> 
> I'm really hoping Conor will forgive me for teasing him so much about his Nintendo rant when he was 16, so I made one of his other personalities a stud muffin Toaster who does it with vacuum cleaners. That's okay, right? right?
> 
> Anywhos, IT'S THE MISTER TIME, YA'LL!!!!

It was a cool fall day in the Chelsea Embankment, and a toaster was typing furiously on his website. 

“Let’s see.” He said in a tinny, obnoxiously loud voice. “Facts King Dot Com entry number 73: Today, Albania has many cars and perhaps 1/3 are Mercedes of varying legal statuses. Albanians do not wear seat-belts.” 

Satisfied with his entry, Disembaudio turned off his laptop and settled in for another night of debauchery. He had a woman coming over tonight. She was short, round, and could detect corners pretty well. 

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, Disembaudio, your incredible DJ-ing the other night really got me _hot_.”

“My cord is stirring for you, Roo.” (Yes it is a Roomba). 

The trip to the bed was quick as both of them were technically appliances and therefore didn’t wear clothes, yet some were mysteriously strewn about the floor.

_Zot! This house is a mess. _Henrietta looked at the clothes which were thrown around. _The Mister does not wear clothes at all any ways, why are they here? _She made her way into the hallway where she found her Mister’s door ajar. She couldn’t help herself… she had to… see if _he _was there.

He was there! Laying face down on the bed was her Mister - Disembaudio. She blushed and looked away quickly -- she could see his warranty sticker. Henrietta saw him stir, so she backed quietly out of the room, but not before she saw a trashcan full of used condoms. It made her heart hurt. 

Disembaudio heard a light rolling along the floor of his apartment. He thought it was just Mrs. OldMaid, his old maid, so he kept sleeping. Then, he noticed an angel in pink and black, with a hose as long as all get-out. In a word: hot. Luckily, he was facing the bed, so his cord didn’t embarrass him. He rubbed his eyes, and the angel appliance disappeared. _Must have been a dream, you idiot, _Disembaudio thought to himself. He was hung over from the night before. Roo left in a huff after he wouldn’t show her what was in the room he locked up that was super secret and held something within it super secretive, guarded by a sticker of a dragon.

He got up and walked into the kitchen to make himself some toast. He popped the toast in his head and looked around as it began to cook. He didn’t see Mrs. OldMaid, but he _heard _something exquisite.

Henrietta idolized the piano Disembaudio kept in his apartment. She could only play one song - Bella’s theme, from Twilight. It drove her to play the piano today. She began playing, forgetting that The Mister was sleeping soundly in his room. _Perhaps he will hear this, and fall in love with me, _she thought to herself, despite that being impossible. _Who could love me, an ex-sex slave from albania and also a vaccuum?_

“ That playing.” Disembaudio started, munching on one of his self-toasted pieces of toast. It tasted bad, Roo must have gotten some dust in his holes last night. “It’s good.”

Henrietta stopped mid-note, startled. “Oh, I am so sorry Mister. I shall never touch your piano again!”

“No, don’t leave, but who are you?” 

“I am Henrietta, your new maid. I am from Albania.”

“I know a thing or two about Albanians, you know.” Disembaudio smirked, his cord twitching uncontrollably -- but thankfully unnoticeably to Henrietta.

Henrietta was so embarrassed. _He must hate me! And hate my playing of his piano! I must run and hide and move back in with my sex-slaver boyfriend!_

And with that, Henrietta fled the apartment, never to return.

_Fuck!_ Disembaudio thought to himself. _I can’t let her leave! _He looked out the doorway and realized she must have shimmied down the side of the building from the small pantry area that also housed the washer and dryer. There were a pair of socks and jeans, wet with rainwater drying on the heater. _Must remember to make an adjustment to my Albanian Facts King Dot Com entry: Albanians only wear one pair of socks. _

Two weeks passed. Mister Disembaudio was off on business in the country with his sexy sister-in-law. Henrietta cleaned the apartment every day, unaware that he was never home aside from the suspiciously clean house. It was then that she noticed the trashcan in his bedroom. It was _empty_. Her heart leapt out of her nozzle. _An empty trashcan! Oh, zot, could it be? Does my Mister think of me as well? _

Disembaudio walked through his apartment door. Clean. Spotless, as usual. There was no trace of the mysterious Henrietta. The piano seemed cold and distant. He sat on the sofa across the room and began playing his guitar. A noodle he played and sold to a prominent american film named Rollergator. It was a good tune - approximately 3 hours long. By the time he was finished playing the song he was tired and it was dark. He fell asleep, his cord stiff while dreaming of his angelic Henrietta. 

There he was. Sitting on his sofa. A guitar oddly posed over his cord. She could almost touch it as she rolled over and removed his guitar and placed it on the hook next to the couch. Suddenly, she realized she was on top of him. Disembaudio kissed her with his weird drawn-on mouth. His stainless steel was so clean, so smooth -- it was enough to make her swoon.

_Is this a dream? _Disembaudio thought to himself. With her hose wrapped around him he reached over to kiss her. “MMm, Henrietta.” He said, woozy with sleep.

That night, Disembaudio began a new entry on his website. “Facts King Dot Com, entry number 74: Albania, the land of love. Only adorable, pink vacuums live here. They are the best. I love them. I truly, whole-heartedly love them. “

He then emailed this to Henrietta’s friend Kirby who was young and handsome but only had a two year warranty so he wasn’t super threatened. Surely, Kirby could get this entry that was so obviously meant for her to Henrietta. 

Days passed, until finally he could stand it no longer. A knock on his door interrupted his passionate cord-handling. He opened the door. Alas, it was not his beloved. 

“What are you guys doing here?” Disembaudio recognized the two idiots and the third nincompoop standing behind them with a fidget spinner.

“We need your help, Disembaudio.” Mike Nelson said, clearing his throat and looking suspiciously over at Conor. Conor shrugged at him. Clearly, logic and reasoning was no place for wherever the truck had taken them.

“Well, come in and sit down, but not on that chair -- I uh, spilled something on it.” They all sat down, and Ernest Cline sat on a pile of old newspapers because he was not worthy of sitting on a couch cushion like a human. “What seems to be the problem?” Disembaudio continued, wondering why there even were newspapers in his apartment.

“We’ve got this truck that travels through space and time,” Conor began, “And apparently now we are interdimensional criminals. We have a robot that prints out stuff like he’s an 80’s printer-slash-fax machine out of his chest chasing us with a detective who can’t seem to finish a thought without using ten commas.”

“That seems like an interesting problem to have.” Disembaudio balked. 

“It’s true!” Mike assured him. “We also have this terrible writer, Ernest Cline, who’s been drinking this jar of ass piss which was formerly the actor Sean Penn.”

“Sean Penn!” Disembaudio screeched. “The author of Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff - AND- Bob Honey Sings Jimmy Crack Corn?”

“The one in the same.” Mike nodded firmly.

There was nothing left to think about. Without thinking (as previously stated), Disembaudio grabbed his coat and rushed to the door. “We have to see Lonor.”

“NO!” Conor yelled. He hated his British cousin. The Lastowka name was forever smeared after a freak kite-flying accident led to a massive birdemic centuries ago. It forced most of the family to separate from the Castowkas and leave Britishland forever. They even went so far as to change their name to Lastowka. 

“Yes, Conor.” Disembaudio nodded disdainfully. “It is the only way. He is a famed Britishland scientist, after all.”

Mike snapped his fingers for Ernest Cline to get up and follow them, and with that they were off to visit the Famed Scientist Lonor Castowka.


	8. I Forgot Mike's Britishman Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I forgot the name Mike used in the Mister where he was doing his british thing w/ Conor and Conor just had an american accent. I think it's one of the funniest bits and here I am forgetting it, FML. I forgot to mention last chapter a bit of a NSFW-ish vibe but I wasn't sure how bad depicting inanimate objects sort of maybe having sex was so for this chapter I will warn you I swore like once towards the end.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you're all enjoying this! I'm having a ton of fun writing these chapters every week xD

As they stepped through the well-hung threshold of Lonor Castowka’s Moo Tower, Conor and Mike couldn’t help but feel as though they were walking into a world almost as meta as the one they came from that started this whole journey. The storm. Sean Penn. The Truck. What was their purpose here? Why did Chad and Dale send them on this wild excursion? Why did Sean Penn need to deliver the truck? These were the questions that had permeated their mindscapes since Sean Penn burst into a puddle of ass piss outside Mike’s home all those chapters ago.

The castle walls were adorned with portraits of cows, and seemed to have been clean at one point. The large stone bricks were grey and splotched with some kind of liquid.

“It’s the Castowka coat of arms.” Disembaudio whispered to the vacuum beside him. 

“That is the same coat of arms of where I am from!” Henrietta gasped. 

Disembaudio’s cord twitched slightly. 

“Oh, enough of that!” Mike called behind him.

The Toaster and the Vacuum silenced themselves but heated up considerably.

The group made it to Lonor’s quarters where he was presently ensconced in figuring out the proper length of a young actress’ hair. He barely noticed them come in. 

“Ahem.” Conor coughed into his fist. 

“Oh, _do _ forgive master Castowka.” A man in a thick british accent who looked suspiciously enough like Mike interjected. “He is quite busy, you see.”

Mike immediately warmed up to the man, and thrust out his hand. “Mike Nelson, nice to meet you.”

“Sir Reginald Jenkins, sir.” The man said with his nose in the air. 

Conor didn’t care that Lonor was busy. “Excuse me, Lonor?”

“Yes? What… what is it? I can’t hear you unless you sidle up to me close and whisper in my ear.” Lonor said in a plain american accent that was slightly jarring to the Group.

“Uh, well, that is to say..” Conor stammered.

“We need your help in turning this jar of ass piss back into Sean Penn.” Mike said.

Lonor looked up, the monocle flopping out of his eye. “Ass piss, you say!?!” Then, coming round the table. “Why, yes I do in fact have a recipe for fixing just that ailment.”

“Really?” Ernest Cline said, bored already with the conversation. “Does it involve a series of riddles tied to pop culture and video game references directed by Steven Spielberg?”

“No, my dear boy,” Lonor scoffed, “That would be completely idiotic. Here, have some grilled kidneys.” Lonor tossed Cline a plate of literal grilled kidneys.

Conor leaned over a little to Cline. “Pretend they’re hearts from Legend of Zelda.” 

“AW MAN I LOVE THAT GUY, ZELDA. HE’S THE BEST.” Cline shouted while mowing down on the lunchfeast.

Mike was still shaking Reginald’s hand and finally stopped as he noticed a balloon-shaped cow in the far corner of the room. “What’s that?”

Lonor piped up over-excitedly. “Ah, yes, that’s my Cow Rig. A man came over and we video taped me in it. See it’s a quite simple feat you see, you see all I do is hop in this way and zip it up here…” He rambled on like Hugh Grant as he zipped himself up into the inflatable cow rig.

“That _is _one helluva rig!” Mike grinned sheepishly and glanced at Conor who was rolling his eyes.

Lonor’s eyes were full of hearts and happiness at that assessment of his prized posession. But it was back to business. He cleared his throat.

“So, anyways, back to the sciencificity of things, group.”

Mike, Conor, Ernest Cline, Disembaudio, Henrietta, and of course Reginald Jenkins nodded with manly approval as they listened to Lonor’s explanation:

“Of course, we know that humans evolved from ass-piss directly many eons ago. It was in the caves of Kentucky where the first molecule of ass-piss slipped out of it’s eggy shell and became a fully-formed human being. We used to call them PP’s of course, Pappy Pariahs, but the alliteration became too much for us. Yes, yes, we evolved slightly more than that and eventually looked down on those who stayed lower than our stature - our Sean Penns of the world if you will.”

“Sean Penn is an actor and actually exists. He has a heated pool.” Conor interrupted.

Lonor glanced wickedly at Conor. “Of course he’s a human. _Now. _But I’ll have you know we of the Moo Council believe him to be a snake. We call him the White Worm behind closed doors. 

“Wait, how is a jar of ass piss a snake?” Mike asked.

“It’s a little more complicated but you’ll have to follow my loose logic and wild accusations.”

“Naturally!” Ernest Cline shouted from knee-deep in the cow-rig suit.

“First off, we know that Sean Penn likes snakes. Look at this video recording someone made of him in private.” Lonor flipped on an obnoxiously large television screen. On it, the boys heard some music in the background. As soon as Sean Penn heard this, he walked out of the room by only using his butt. “Do you see? That’s an odd way for people of the human persuasion to walk.” 

“He’s an actor though couldn’t he just be researching a part?” Conor asked.

“Yes, quite,” Lonor began, “although if you look here where the camera pans over towards his bed you can clearly observe that there _is _no bed. If I fast-forward a little bit more you see Sean Penn get back into the room and slowly curl himself up in this wicker basket. Where _snakes _sleep!”

The boys were stunned. The logic checked out, and with the video proof all they had to do was mill around the room in the dark for a while before coming up with a cogent plan.

“But wait,” Conor said after several hours of room-wide silence, “We aren’t trying to rid ourselves of Sean Penn, we just want to turn him back into a human maybe.”

“Oh.” Lonor sighed, dejectedly. “Then I suppose we can go with the other plan. You must acquire several items for me to use in a concoction that when mixed with the jar of ass piss will allow Sean Penn to return to his snakey glory.”

“Sounds good.” Mike and Conor agreed.

“I’ll get the guns! So so many of the guns, sir.” Reginald Jenkins started for the door.

“No no, we won’t need guns for this.” Lonor reproached him. “You’ll just need a means to travel between dimensions. Tell me, what books have you two made fun of for the past few years?”

“Ready Player One, Armada, Eye of Argon, Tek War, 64-Squares, Bob Honey, The Mister, Trucking Through Time --” Conor counted off.

“Trucking Through Time, you say?” Lonor interrupted.

“Yeah it’s about these two idiots who truck through time in their time traveling truck.” Mike explained.

Lonor made an easily discernible hand gesture. “That’s it! Use this truck and go through the books again -- all of them -- and find the stupidest thing you can in them. Bring them all back here and we will begin the alchemy.”

Several hours later, after tea, the group split up some. Disembaudio and Henrietta decided to stay in town because Henrietta just went apeshit over the sea, and Disembaudio had a DJ gig later that night nearby anyways. Mike, Conor, Cline, and the Jar hopped back in the Truck.

“Where should we go first? Chronological order?” Conor suggested, sitting in the passenger seat. 

“I think we should intend to go see Chad and Dale. They have a lot of explaining to do, partner.”

“I agree completely.” Conor agreed completely.

“10-4 Good Buddy!” Cline said a little _too _enthusiastically.

Conor stuck some duct tape on Cline’s mouth for the duration of the time traveling, and with a brilliant snow storm they were off like a rocket in overdrive.


	9. Five men, Three Socks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my BF came up with the title
> 
> The boys are back to visit the other boys in 18-something-hundreds. But something's gone terribly wrong. What will it take to fix it? Not even I know!

The faint smell of a fresh torture pole permeated the air. A smattering of recently-chopped off penises littered the grounds as Mike and Conor pulled up in the time traveling truck. A herd of buffalo ran rampant several miles away just underneath the horizon.

“Wow, it sure is beautiful out here in the wilderness.” Mike said.

Conor, Mike, and Ernest Cline stomped over some sliced phalluses while they searched for Chad and Dale. They felt, as they did this, they were in turn being watched by somewhere far away on a hill.

In fact, they _were _being watched by Chad and Dale from behind a tarp on a hill not far from them.

“Partner, I think we got trouble.” Chad said to Dale.

“I agree completely, good buddy.” Dale responded.

Chad waved his arms and sent Three Socks and Blue Duck to go nab the interlopers.

By the time Three Socks and Blue Duck got to Mike and Conor and Ernest Cline, the boys had swept up the penises strewn about the torture pole. Three Socks and Blue Duck were so impressed with the way they demonstrated goodness about them that they decided to turn on Chad and Dale in an instant.

“Chad and Dale came back shortly after they had left.” Three Socks began. “They brought back some things from their time and took over half of the territories out here.”

“That’s awful!” Conor gasped.

“It makes you wonder who the _real _savages are!” Mike said. The group was not amused. Mike coughed uncomfortably, feeling very much like Cline must have this whole time.

“We can take you to them if you want to speak to them and knock some sense into them, and perhaps take them back with you to their own time.” Blue Duck looked around. “In thanks for cleaning up the torture pole area that Chad and Dale used mercilessly.”

“Wait, Blue Duck! Look --” Three Socks pointed to the truck. “They have the truck!”

Both of the native american men glared at the three white men. Conor resisted the urge to point guiltlessly at Ernest Cline.

“It’s not our truck.” Mike explained. “It’s true they sent it to us, and Sean Penn drove it---” At the mention of ‘Sean Penn’ all who were present visibly gagged a bit. “Sean Penn drove it to my house. It seemed that they needed help. We had only just read the book and in it they were the good guys believe it or not. Figuring out to help them was the easy part. The hard part was finding out how, because about five seconds after Sean Penn showed up at my doorstep the got electrocuted into a puddle of ass piss. We’ve been carrying what’s left of him around with us in this jar. I had to pick up Ernest Cline because he wanted to go visit his girlfriend in Canada and then I picked up Conor because there’s no way I’m going to hang out with Ernest Cline alone. The truck seemed to have a mind of itself. It was taking us to different books we’ve been reading the past two years and even one we were currently reading somehow. It’s strange when you think about it.

We’ve been travelling between these book dimensions in an effort to get home, but the truck just keeps bringing us to the different books. We think something’s wrong in these books and we’re here to fix them, but we’re not sure what. We also have a lead on to where to get Sean Penn back to a human using mesmerology in England. There, a relative of Conor’s told us to gather stupid items from each book and bring them back to him. So that’s our mission now. What’s most interesting to us right now though is why Chad and Dale, the original owners of the truck, decided to send it to us in the first place and why it’s brought us here presently.”

Three Socks and Blue Duck looked at each other for a moment. They thought it over. Three Socks was a hard man. He didn’t believe that the five men weren’t connected in some way sinister. He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think they’re telling the truth, Blue Duck. I don’t understand why the three of them came to our world if not to help the others who belong elsewhere as well.”

A gun clicked behind all five of the men.

“You have to want an understanding, before you are able to have understand.” A voice uttered behind them. It was the owner of the gun and that owner just happened to be Dale.

“Don’t move, any of you.” Chad commanded, lighting a fuzzie.

Conor and Mike looked at each other and then back at Chad and Dale.

“What are you two doing? You’re the heroes of the book!” Conor exclaimed.

Chad and Dale laughed uproariously.

“We know enough about history to stake our claim in California before the rush hits.”

“You mean the gold rush?” Conor asked.

Another laugh burst fourth from the two gun-wielding villains.

“No! Of course not. What use do we have of gold? No -- we want the trucking routes.”

“Th--the trucking routes?” Mike’s jaw dropped. Surely they wouldn’t have wiped out an entire civilization for some land that popular trucking roads would be located on in 200 years.

“We’re two of the best, oldest hats in the trucking game. We pack _tons _of knicknacks and fuzzies and tarps and bungee cords. The only market left in that is owning the land the roads will be built on. Then, we will have a monopoly!”

“A road Monopoly.” Ernest Cline nodded affectionately. “I love that game.

Chad and Dale tied Ernest Cline up to the torture pole and let him sit there while the men talked.

“Between the six of us I think we can come up with a solution that serves all of us well.” Dale began. “We want our truck back.”

Conor and Mike looked over at where the truck had been. It was gone. Somehow, it had disappeared. They were thankful of that fact. Chad and Dale looked serious.

“We don’t know where the truck went. It usually comes and goes at will.”

That didn’t seem to satisfy Chad and Dale. “Well, maybe if we kill you four the truck will come rescue you.”

Chad pointed his gun at Conor, and Dale pointed his at Mike. This was it.

Suddenly a dimension-beam shot out of nowhere and exploded into a wormhole. An obscenely hot woman with long, curly 80’s teased hair in a futuristic pleather suit jumped out of it. She blasted the guns to smithereens right out of Chad and Dale’s hands.

“Let’s go, guys.” She nodded to Mike and Conor. “I’m here to save you.

“Wait a minute, who are you?” Mike asked.

“BLERIANA!!!” Cline exclaimed in delight.

Mike and Conor were shocked. “The waitress from the diner?”

Bleriana nodded solemnly. “That’s right.” She hesitantly blasted off the rope coiled around Ernest Cline and the torture pole. “I guess you can come, too.” She muttered under her breath.

Chad and Dale were so busy objectifying her they didn’t realize they themselves were being dragged off to the Torture Pole by Three Socks and Blue Duck. They nodded sagely at Bleriana who returned the nod of approval.

“Come on, let’s go. Just jump into this.”

“LIKE SLIDERS!” Cline shouted, almost wetting himself.

“You know, that show really didn’t hold up.” Mike pointed out.

“Where are we going, anyways?” Conor asked her.

Bleriana smirked. “We’re going, to see a, man, about a saxophone.”


	10. I'm The End and the Beginning

The saxophone was indeed owned by a man. That man happened to be a man named Bascom, and he really loved playing saxophone. Once he stopped his ballad, he scooted off his desk and tossed the saxophone to the side. Ernest Cline clapped emphatically.

Mike, Conor, and Bleriana sighed with relief at the ceasing of the music. 

Bleriana rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Alright Bascom, I brought them here. I want my payment.”

Bascom raised his hands in a consoling gesture. “Okay, okay, don’t get your _pantalones _in a twist.” He then walked behind his desk and took out a small leather checkbook. He eyed each man suspiciously before writing down a number and ripping the check out of the book. Bascom handed the check to Bleriana.

“Here you go, as promised.”

Bleriana nodded. Her cybernetic eye seemed to glow a little. It was scanning Bascom. “This is sufficient.” She paused. “But my work here isn’t done.”

Bascom scowled. “What do you mean? I was the one who asked you to bring these three back to the Cosmos Detective Agency. There’s no one above me.” 

Bleriana scoffed. “You think I work for you? I merely take money from you in exchange for services rendered, such as acquiring these three idiots from another dimension.”

“Hey--” Mike took offense at first, but then remembered he talked to puppets for like ten years, and quieted down.

Bascom knotted his eyebrows down to his nose and began to stare at Bleriana.

Bleriana smirked and disintegrated him with her cybernetic eye laser.

As they left the Cosmos Detective Agency, Conor asked Bleriana a burning question: “Hey Bleriana, what happened to you? The last we saw you were on our earth working as a waitress.”

“And doing grown up things with me in the back of the truck!” Ernest Cline chimed in.

Bleriana laughed out loud. “Oh, yes that was ages ago wasn’t it?” She pointed to a bar across the street. “Let’s go in there and I’ll tell you all about it.”

They happily walked across the plasway, entered the bar, and sat down at a plas booth. A robot came over and offered from their assortment of many beers and alcohols. Conor remembered his time in the Up Place and ordered a < CRAFT BEER >. Mike followed suit. Ernest Cline ordered a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Bleriana rubbed her glass of whiskey. “You see, after _he _left with you two jackals, I wondered how your truck could disappear like that in front of me. And why there was a snow storm in the middle of July. Nothing added up. So I went back inside and asked my ex boyfriend about it. It turns out he’s a man named Sean Penn’s publisher, and gave me this little metal disk that had your podcast all over it. It didn’t take me long to realize we’re in a work of fiction, and existing in a meta-fic of the podcast. The rest was simple, and here we are.”

“How’d you lose your eye? You look like Leela from Futurama!” Ernest Cline threw up words.

Bleriana reached down and pulled up an empty bucket. “This is my only friend, Bucket. He has been with me since I was kidnapped during my journey to find you all. During our time together, I…” She looked at the bucket and seemed consoled. “I was told that my eye was named Argon by a group of priests. I was saved by a man wielding a sword made of rat entrails, but not before the priests took my eye. I traveled to TekWar to get it replaced shortly after my escape.”

“Oh, Grignir is here!?” Mike asked.

Bleriana sloshed the bucket a little. “He is in here. He was turned into a puddle of green goo after you all skipped the short story Eye of Argon during these chapters.”

Mike and Conor were taken aback. How could they have forgotten one of Mike’s favorite books they made fun of? They hung their heads in shame.

“But isn't it like, not even a book at all?” Ernest Cline broke the silence. The group glared at him, but he was oblivious. “Yeah, like it was published in a _zine _of all things in the 60’s.”

“Okay first of all how do _you _know that?” Mike asked, suspicious.

“And why didn’t you call it a _classic zine_?” Conor added.

Ernest Cline grabbed the top-back of his head and unzipped down. Within the skin suit of Ernest Cline was a small black furry cat who couldn’t have been over two years old.

The three humans all jumped out of their plaschairs and stared in awe and admiration of the adorable creature sitting in front of them.

“Wh--who are you?” Bleriana asked, readying her Lazgun.

The cat simply looked at the lazgun and tilted his head to the side. The action made the Lazgun disappear in a pink poot cloud of hearts and glitter.

Conor and Mike were trying to figure out a funny quip about jumping the shark, but unfortunately there were no sharks or Fonzies around.

“It is me, Alejandro.” The cat spoke in a thick italian accent.

Alejandro jumped down from his chair and looked back at the humans who were now super confused and also a little buzzed. “Come, we must talk about important matters.” And with that he zoomied out the door.

As Mike, Conor, and Bleriana stepped foot outside the plasbar, the futuristic and plastic Greater Los Angeles faded away and was replaced with a cosmic backdrop. They walked amongst the stars and nebulae for what seemed like an eternity before Alejandro paused and looked down. They could see what he was staring at: the multiverse of earths.

“Every earth is the same, my loves.” He began. “The only difference is that you two very good boys only exist on this one.” He put his paw on their home earth. “This is not so good. All the earths need your pod-cast.”

“Why do they need our podcast?” Conor asked the space cat.

Alejandro looked up at him with large, round, green eyes. “It is because the Sean Penns and Ernest Clines of the world take over eventually. Bad books are not so good. You give us the good jokes and that makes you very good boys.”

He paused for a moment. “Did you like the baesball Corgies?” Alejandro asked Conor honestly.

“Yes, I loved them very much.” Conor said, whimpering slightly because he missed the corgis.

“You will no doubt see them again on your travels, my friend.” Alejandro reassured him. 

Alejandro looked over at Bleriana, who was in love with Alejandro.

“I am sorry to trick you for so long, but I had to put the man known as Ernest Cline back home. He already has a wife, and is an idiot.”

Bleriana nodded. “He _is _an idiot. I’m glad to be rid of him.”

Alejandro blinked, and Bleriana and her bucket disappeared.

“Where did they go?” Mike asked, upset about losing Grignr again.

“You will see them again once more, I have sent them on a new mission for now.”

Alejandro looked down at the multiverse of earths and spun his paw around. It in turn spun the earths around and around. He stopped it with his other paw. “This is a good place to start.” Alejandro said.

“Start? Start what?” Mike asked.

Alejandro tilted his head to the side. Afraid of being pooted into hearts and glitter, Mike adjusted his attitude.

“I mean.. I mean to say, sir Alejandro sir, is that we don’t really understand what we’re meant to do?”

“We just make fun of bad books. It’s not even the only thing we do.” Conor added.

Alejandro looked at both of them and gave them a long, slow blink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s the end of Chapter 10 and Volume 1 of We Will Get Back, a fanfic about a podcast which is about making fun of bad books. I hope you enjoyed it so far. I’ll be back in a few weeks with Chapter 11 + the beginning of Volume 2. I hope you enjoyed reading so far, and feel free to download the PDF or ePub file at https://wewillgetback.carrd.co/


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